Of Backseats, Belts, Blood, and Bandanas
by SabbyStarlight
Summary: Just an early Season One mission gone wrong, plotless whumpy fic.


**Here, have some early Season 1 whump! **

"Riley, talk to me," Jack called, straining to get a clear visual on his two kids through the rear-view mirror as he maneuvered through the bumper-to-bumper traffic of rush hour in downtown LA. "How we lookin' back there?"

"I'm fine, Jack," Mac insisted, voice tight with pain as he pressed harder on the wadded up flannel shirt he was using to stop the blood from leaking out of the stab wound on his side. "Keep driving."

"Bleedin' out in the backseat isn't exactly my definition of fine, hoss," Jack grumbled, frown lines deepening. "Pretty sure it ain't anyone's. And I didn't ask you, I was asking Riley, who is in a better position to judge these things seein' as how she ain't dyin' on me."

"Nobody's dying," Riley cut in, amending.

"I'm fine," Mac tried again. "And Ri's hurt too."

"Hey, a twisted ankle is nowhere close to a stab wound," Riley switched teams, back on Jack's side, the two of them against Mac. "I really am fine."

"I saw that fall, you hit the ground hard," Mac let his head drop to the cool glass of his window. "You gotta get it checked out."

"I will," She promised, a gentle hand coming to rest on his arm, thumb sweeping soothingly at the bare skin beneath the hem of his t-shirt sleeve, muscles tight with pain and the exertion of keeping pressure on his injury. "But you're taking priority right now. Let us worry about you first, okay?"

The car came to a complete stop, traffic backed up behind a red light that Jack could barely see, almost a half-mile ahead of them. He risked turning around, peering over the seat of the rented SUV as best he could without taking his foot off the brake. "Ri, sit-rep?"

"I'm... I don't know Jack!" She quickly slipped a hair tie off her wrist and pulled back handfuls of curls into a messy ponytail. "I'm not exactly an expert on this kind of thing. He's awake and reasonably coherent and hasn't bled through that shirt yet. All things considered? I think he's as good as can be expected. I don't know what else to tell you."

"The he in question is right here," Mac interrupted them with a sigh, struggling to sit up straighter in his seat to prove that he was alright. "And he's..."

"If you say you're fine one more time, kid, it might just be the last thing you do," Jack warned, sending him a glare over the back of the seat that was interrupted by a horn blaring from somewhere behind them. Turning back around, Jack saw the empty space that had opened up, just a few car-lengths, but enough for the line of drivers, who were apparently all in as big of a hurry as Jack himself was, to grow impatient. He slammed both hands against the steering wheel in frustration as he crawled the car forward a few paces. "I don't know why Patty felt the need to make us come back to Phoenix instead of hightailing it to the closest hospital anyway."

"Because we're operating on American soil," Mac explained, not for the first time since he and Riley had dove into the back of the car Jack had slid to a halt and peeled out of the gravel driveway before the door was even closed behind them. "Which is risky enough without this one being practically in our own back yard."

"And going to the closest hospital would have only cut half an hour off our drive," Riley cut in. "And coming in with a stab wound would have raised a ton of questions."

"I hear ya, I hear ya," Jack muttered, searching for an opening in a faster-moving lane and ending up even more frustrated than he was in their original position. "But he might not have an extra half hour."

"Again, he is right here and wishes you would stop talking about him like he's not." Mac sent a pleading stare across the seat to Riley. "Tell him I'm alright?"

"Jack. Mac," She began, taking extra care to call Mac by his name, a teasing move that made him crack a smile, "Says he's alright."

"Yeah, yeah, I heard him," Jack moved the car up to the stoplight they had finally reached, only to slam on the breaks as the light hovered on yellow for a mere second before switching to red. "C'mon!" He yelled, glaring through the windshield, and yelling directly to the security cameras hanging on the lines between the lights as if there was someone listening on the other end. "Work with me here!"

Mac bit back a groan at the sudden jolt.

"Jack, why don't you let me drive?" Riley suggested, yet again. "Then you can check him over yourself."

Jack was shaking his head in protest before she even finished talking. "Nope. You ain't drivin', not on that foot. Just, need you to be my eyes back there, okay?" He took a breath and focused on the packed freeway before him, the one thing standing between him and getting medical attention. The look in his eyes was eerily similar to the look Mac had seen peering through the scope of a sniper rifle when they were first partnered together overseas. "I need details. You want me to stop freakin' out? I need to know what we're dealin' with."

"Okay," She nodded. "Okay. Mac? Can I...?" Her hands hovered over his own, knuckles white from how tightly he was gripping the flannel.

He shifted, sitting up a little straighter, not curled in on himself quite as much, and nodded. One quick dip of his head before dropping it back to the leather seat with a muted thud and Riley finally understood Jack's habit of pushing that blonde hair back from his forehead when he was checking him over. She had to fight the urge to do it herself. "Oh, that's a lot of blood," she hadn't intended for Jack to hear the words, but of course, he did.

"How much we talkin'?"

"No more than there should be for a wound this size," Mac assured, prying his eyes open to meet Jack's in the mirror. "Calm down. You wanted her to check it out, stop interrupting and let her."

"Um, yeah," Riley carefully wiped away the blood with a relatively dry patch of sleeve as it welled up out of the cut. "Yeah, I think he's right, Jack. All things considered, it doesn't look too bad."

"You're bein' my eyes, remember?" Jack prompted for more information as the car kept crawling down the packed freeway. "Gimmie more than that."

"About three inches long, a little below his rib cage," She continued.

"How deep's it look?"

At that, she hesitated, completely out of her comfort zone and unsure of herself. Worried eyes flicked up to find Mac's staring back at her, calm despite the pain he had to be in.

Mac answered for her. "Guy was going for the kill, aiming for up under the ribs like that. Obviously I dodged the worst of it, Iike I've been saying, or I wouldn't be here listening to you freak out about it."

"That ain't an answer, pal." There was a heat behind Jack's words that Riley had never heard directed towards his partner once in the admittedly short but eventful months they had been working together. "Seems like kill strikes ain't the only things you're deflecting today."

"Okay, stop," Riley carefully took Mac's hands and placed them back over the shirt. He began reapplying pressure with a wince. "Dial back the attitude, Jack. Short of jamming a ruler in there to measure it accurately, I'm not sure how you want me to answer that."

"A plan I'm strongly against," Mac interjected with a faint shadow of his usual smirk.

"We're just going to go with 'not deep enough to kill him immediately' and you'll have to be satisfied with that for now." She wiped her hands on the black denim of her jeans, trying not to think of the quickly-drying liquid as being blood. Mac's blood. "He always get this grumpy stuck in traffic?" She asked, trying to distract her and him both.

That actually got Mac to huff a pained laugh. "He hates it when I get so much as a scrape."

"They callin' stab wounds scrapes now, pal? Cause Marium Webster forgot to consult with me on the changing of that definition." Another stoplight caught them, and if the car in front of them hadn't stopped Jack would have run it. He closed his eyes, silently counting to ten, trying to reign in his temper.

"But yeah, he hates traffic too." Mac continued. "You should see him when he's the one hurt though. That's when he gets downright grouchy. What was it Bozer called you that one time, Jack? When he showed up at your place with dinner and we had just got you out of the hospital after that arms dealer had a little fun at your expense with the branding iron?"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," Jack muttered, coaxing their car forward slowly as the light changed, eyeing an opening in the next lane. "I'm a perfectly pleasant... Aww come on! Seriously?" He slammed on the breaks as the car in front of him cut suddenly over to take the open space and Mac couldn't hold back the whimper of pain this time. "Use your damn blinker!" Jack yelled, laying on the horn to punctuate every word.

"You were saying?" Riley asked sweetly.

"Cantankerous." Mac tried to snap his fingers as the word came to him but the effect was lost on his blood-slick hand. "That's what he called you. Good word for it too."

"Hush," Jack risked taking his eyes off the road again when the traffic stalled once more, turning around to get a better look at his partner in the back seat. "You keepin' pressure on that?"

"Hurts," Mac said, voice low, and the admission was enough to replace some of the anger around Jack's eyes with sympathy.

"I know, bud, I know." He stretched across the front console just enough to give his knee a quick squeeze. "Hang in there for me, okay? You're doin' great."

Mac nodded and Jack dropped back into his seat with a huff, switching his attention away from Mac for the moment. "Ri, how's that foot?"

"Ankle," She corrected automatically with an eye roll. "And it's fine. Seriously, It's just a sprain. Nothing to worry about. I really think we'd be better off if I drove us the rest of the way, then you could keep a closer eye on Mac."

"Nope. We're close, ain't switchin' now. And you're not gettin' behind the wheel with that foot. You're gettin' checked out as soon as we make it back to HQ though, you hear?" Jack asked as he finally came up on the exit ramp that would lead them to Phoenix. That road wasn't nearly as busy. Jack was able to bring the car almost up to the speed limit.

"I know, Jack. As soon as we get Mac..."

"No," He interrupted her with a shake of his head. "As soon as we get there. I get him sent one way, getting patched up, you go the other. There are plenty people workin' up there in Medical, we're gonna make sure they're earnin' their keep today."

"Don't bother fighting him on this," Mac advised. "It's not one you're gonna win."

"Hey, now," Jack picked up on the slowness in Mac's words instantly. "You're stayin' awake back there for me, right?"

"Tryin'," Blue eyes cracked open, blinking against the brightness of the sun. "How far away are we?"

"Almost there, kiddo," Jack promised. "I'm gettin' you there as fast as I can. Ri? He still holdin' pressure on that?"

"Um," She looked over at Mac's hands, which had begun to tremble against the nearly-soaked shirt he wasn't holding as tight. "Mostly."

"Help him out then," Jack instructed, inching closer to the bumper in front of him, urging them to go faster. "We're almost there."

Mac hissed sharply as Riley covered his hands with her own, apologizing as she went, closing her eyes tightly against his pain.

"'S okay," He whispered, fighting to keep her from seeing his pain. "'M good."

"So very, very far from good," Jack grumbled as he fumbled to pull his cell phone out of his pocket with a growl. "The whole lot of us. Patty," He barked at the phone held between his shoulder and ear. "You have medical ready for us, you hear? We're three minutes out and comin' back was your bright idea so I better not have either of these kids makin' the slightest pit stop in a waiting room." He hung up and tossed the phone into the passenger seat without giving her a chance to argue.

"Really just three minutes?" Riley pried her eyes away from Mac and focused on Jack for a moment, taking in the faint sheen of sweat that had broken out on his brow and the way he was gripping the steering wheel so tight she felt certain that he would be leaving dents in the leather when he finally let go.

Jack just nodded, eyes focused on the road, silent until he spun into the Phoenix garage. Ignoring the neat white rows of parking spots, he pulled up to the door, barely taking the time to put it in park before his door was open and he was at Mac's.

"Easy," he grunted as Mac's head fell into his chest as the door was opened and he lost contact with the cool window he had turned into a pillow. "I gotcha. Just let me do all the work here," Jack coached as he maneuvered his partner to standing as gently as he could.

"I'll…" Riley's voice came from still inside the car. Jack peered down, sending a warning glare that had her automatically removing her hand from the door handle.

"What your gonna do," Jack instructed, once Mac was more or less standing upright, head tucked securely into the safety provided by Jack's shoulder. "Is not move until I get back here to help you."

"I can…" she tried again but Jack cut her off.

"Stay sitting right there until I get Mac help? Great. Do just that." He began the slow process of tugging Mac towards the entrance, taking as much of the younger man's weight as he could while keeping pressure on the thoroughly sodden shirt at the same time.

"Need some help here!" Jack yelled as he kicked open the door to Phoenix Med a few moments later. There was a nurse at his side as soon as he crossed the threshold, helping him lead Mac to the closest exam table.

"Hey, pal," Jack forced a smile as he leaned over the table Mac was reclined on, running a hand through sweaty blonde bangs. "You're alright. Told ya I'd get you here in time. You were doin' all that worrying for nothin'."

Mac smiled at that, and relaxed slightly under Jack's familiar hand. "Think the worryin' was all you, big guy."

"Who, me? Naw, I never worry. Hardly know the meanin' of the word." Jack teased. "Listen, I'm gonna run back down to the garage and help Ri up here, okay? You good on your own for a little while?"

Mac nodded.

"No, gimme something a little more reassuring than a nod, hoss. Need to hear it."

"I'm good," Mac promised. "Really. Go."

"You sure?" Jack hesitated, the words swimming through his mind sounding wrong before he even spoke them. "Cause if you really mean that I might stick around with her, this bein' her first time in Medical and all. But only if you're fine with it."

"Go," Mac repeated. "Make sure she's okay. I'm sure I'll still be here when they're done checking out her ankle, you can come find me then."

"I'll be real close," Jack promised, catching the nurse's eye as well, making sure she heard. "Right down the hall, and if you need me you just let someone know, alright? They'll send someone to grab me and I'll be back here before you know it."

"Go," Mac said again. "I'm fine."

Jack slid his hand down Mac's arm, pausing to wrap his hand around Mac's own and give it a comforting squeeze, fighting back every instinct he had that was screaming at him to stay. "You take care of my boy, now." He spoke to Mac's nurse again before forcing his fingers to let go and his feet to carry him out of the cubical.

The jog back down to the parking garage left him out of breath, slapping a hand on the hood of the car to signal his return to Riley who was, as directed, still waiting in the back seat. "I could have helped you, you know. Get him upstairs? I twisted my ankle, I'm not useless."

"Nobody said you were," Jack wiped the sweat off his forehead and then wiped his hands on his jeans before reaching down to help Riley out of the car. "But you're gonna let me help you anyways."

"Fine," she rolled her eyes and wrapped an arm around his shoulders as he pulled her close to his side and he began limping them towards the entrance doors again.

"Stop puttin' weight on that foot," Jack grumbled as they waited for the elevator doors to open on the Med floor.

"You sure you're okay? Little out of breath, aren't you?" She teased, feeling the heavy rise and fall of his chest so close to her. "What'd you do, carry Mac the whole way up here?"

"He's heavier than he looks," Jack deflected in what was almost an answer. The elevator opening to the brightly lit hallway saved him from any more explanation. "Let's go get that foot taken care of, okay?"

"Ankle." She corrected automatically as she hopped along beside him, using his shoulder as a crutch.

His entrance wasn't nearly as dramatic the second time around, a nurse was waiting to lead them to an empty curtained-off room. Before she could protest, Jack had both hands on either side of Riley's waist and lifted her up to set on the exam table.

"Okay, stop," she pushed his hands away. "Enough with the crazy overprotectiveness. I'm fine."

Which was the exact reaction Jack had been hoping for. "You sure about that?" He raised an eyebrow. "Cause if your so sure your fine I'll just head over and check in on Mac. He'll at least appreciate my company."

"Go," She waved him off with a flick of her wrist, shooing him towards the main Med bay. "Go check on Mac."

"You're sure?" He hesitated with a hand on the curtain.

"Go."

So he went. Not to Mac's room though, as he walked down the short, brightly lit hall, the direct lie not sitting well with him but he deemed it a necessary evil and pushed any thoughts of it to the back burner. He walked until he came upon yet another nurse; a young man this time, close to Mac's age. He grabbed his arm and pulled him down the hallway to a little empty corner near the vending machines.

"Sir," he began but Jack held up a finger, silencing him.

"Let me talk." The young man nodded, already well-versed in dealing with Phoenix agents. "I need your help, okay? Two-part plan."

"I can assist with whatever you need."

"One, you're gonna keep an eye on those kids I brought in. Make sure they're alright." Jack instructed.

"I can do that," the nurse nodded. "If you want, I can take you to Agent MacGyver's room…"

"Nope." Jack bit his lip, wanting nothing more than to do just that. "But when you check in on them? You tell 'em I'm sorry. Which leads us to the second thing." Jack hesitated for a moment, eyes scanning the hallway, making sure they were alone before pulling his black t-shirt up. "Think you're up to helpin' me with this?

It took a moment for the young man to register what he was seeing. At first, he thought the blood had come from Agent MacGyver, he had been on stand-by and watched as Agent Dalton practically carried his partner in. Then he noticed the belt, pulled free from the loops of Jack's waistband and cinched tight, just a few inches above where it should have been, leather against skin. The blood was too fresh to have been a transfer.

"What…?" He moved closer, one hand coming to rest on Jack's shoulder the other investigating the belt, seeing the thoroughly blood-soaked bandana being held in place by the stained leather just above his hipbone. "Is that a bullet wound?"

"Still in there," Jack confirmed, bracing a hand against the closest wall to keep himself upright. His adrenaline, which had been keeping him going the whole way back to Phoenix, began flagging the moment he knew his kids were in good hands. "Did my best to keep 'em from knowin'. From seein' the blood."

"Alright, Agent Dalton, it's going to be fine," It was probably just Jack's mind, but his nurse was starting to sound an awful lot like Mac. At least, what he could hear of him through the ringing in his ears.

"You 'member part one?" Jack fought a losing battle with keeping the slur out of his voice. "Of our plan?"

The nurse nodded, multitasking as he called for assistance.

"You tell 'em I'm sorry." Jack instructed with the last of his strength as his knees buckled and he dropped, unconscious before his head even hit the floor.

_**~M~**_

Jack woke up hours later, to the all-too-familiar smell of a hospital, letting out a groan as he stretched beneath scratchy blankets and felt a painful tug in his abdomen.

A familiar murmur of voices caught his attention and he peeled back heavy eyelids to find Riley sitting in a chair beside his bed. One look at the fury in her eyes, as she stared at him, unflinching, and he remembered the day's events. "Aww, hell," his voice was hoarse, throat dry. "Your mad at me ain't ya?"

"Oh no, we passed up mad," Mac's voice came through this time, and Jack's head turned on autopilot, tracking the voice to the younger man laying in the other bed of the shared room on the other side of Riley's chair. "We passed up mad a long time ago. One emergency surgery to remove a bullet you didn't bother telling us about, long time ago, to be exact."

"Y'all both okay?" Jack let his eyes fall back closed, eyebrows drawn together in a wince. "Cause if you are, 'm going back to sleep. Don't feel up to fightin' with both of y'all at the moment."

"Oh no," Mac called, throwing one of the extra pillows from his bed and hitting Jack squarely in the face. "You don't get to play that card. Not now. You lost the sympathy vote when you hid this from us."

"Nurse was supposed to tell you I was sorry,* He muttered into the pillow. " Didn't wanna scare you. Either of you."

"And what about the lying?" Riley asked. There was a crack in her voice that he hadn't heard since she was young and it was enough to make him look back towards her, acting on instinct alone. "What's your excuse for that?"

"Well, darlin', that was cause I didn't want you to worry."

"Bullshit." Mac's voice echoed through the quiet room and Jack started to tell him to watch his mouth, or at the very least make a joke about Mac having apparently discovered his big boy words, until he realized that he was in no position to be arguing. His plan, while executed with the best of intentions, had not been his best. Bullshit, he was realizing in hindsight, was a fairly accurate word for it.

"That's bullshit and you know it." Mac continued, anger growing with every word. "You were being a self-sacrificial idiot, hiding that from us when you were in worse shape than the two of us combined!"

"It all worked out, now didn't it?" Jack cautiously poked at the surgical dressing he could feel beneath the paper-thin hospital gown. "Got you two taken care of, then myself."

"Were you even going to tell us?" Mac braced himself on his bedrails and pushed himself up to sitting with a wince. "Or were you just going to hope we wouldn't notice that you had disappeared back to the operating room?"

"Was gonna tell you as soon as you got in the car, to be honest with ya," Jack admitted, trying to catch Riley's eye but she was blinking steadfastly at the wall behind him. "But then you were bleedin' and I couldn't stop to tell how bad. And Ri was hurt too and I just… didn't. Thought I'd wait until we made it to the closest ER but when Patty made the call for us to come back here,"

"You don't get to blame this on Thornton," Mac shook his head. "If you had been upfront with everyone from the beginning about you being hurt too she probably wouldn't have even rerouted us. And we could have got you help before you passed out in the hallway from blood loss and an adrenaline crash."

"Do you have any idea how terrifying that was?" Riley finally turned back towards him and he decided that her staring past him was better than her tear-filled eyes being trained on him. "To hear all the commotion, the people running, saying there was an agent down, asking if they needed a damn crash cart? I thought it was Mac!" She huffed a laugh, wiping a frustrated hand over her eyes. "And then I limp my way out into the hall just in time to see them loading you up, covered in blood, and rushing off with you."

Jack bit back a wince as he shifted closer to the edge of his bed, just enough for him to reach out a hand to wrap around Riley's. "I really am sorry." He looked over to Mac. "Both of you. The last thing I wanted was to scare you. I thought I had time. Get y'all taken care of and then get help for myself. Guess I was wrong."

"You don't say," Mac ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "God, Jack, what would you have done if I pulled a stunt like that? Do you know how much hell you would have given me? I would never hear the end of it!"

"I said I was sorry for scarin' you, and I meant it. But if you're lookin' for me to apologize for putting your safety ahead of my own, it ain't gonna happen."

"That's how you're going to justify this?" Riley scoffed, pulling her hand out of Jack's. "By saying you were just doing your job?"

"That doesn't make it okay, Jack," Mac added. "Not even a little."

"How is hiding an injury from us going to keep us safe?" Riley continued. "Did you ever think of that?"

"I did what had to be done."

"Oh no," Mac shook his head, blue eyes bright with anger. "Now if you had been honest with us, and let Riley call ahead and had three chairs waiting down in the parking garage? Then we wouldn't be having this conversation. Instead, you practically carried me and Riley both up here when someone should have been carrying you!"

"You picked me up, you picked me up and sat me on that table like it was nothing. And didn't bother to mention that you were bleeding out, that there was a bullet inside you!"

"Okay!" Jack held up his hands in surrender, sending IV lines clattering against the side of his bed. "Okay, you're right! It was a bad call on my part. There, happy?"

Riley and Mac shared a pointed look, far too in sync with one another for two people who had been strangers only a few months before. "I think," Mac began. "We would both feel a lot better if you agreed not to do it ever again."

"What?" Jack feigned innocence, teasing. "Get shot? Sorry, pal. Can't give it up. That's a big part of my extracurricular activities right there."

Riley rolled her eyes and bit back a smile.

"How about we all just try to not get hurt anymore for a while? No more visits to this or any other medical facility in the immediate future?" Jack offered. "Sound alright to you two?"

"Sounds great," Mac agreed around a yawn. "So long as you agree to tell us the next time something like this happens."

"The next time a bullet ends up in me, you'll be the first to know," Jack promised. "Why don't you get some sleep, hoss. You've had a rough day."

"Not all of us got to sleep through most of it," Riley agreed, moving her crutches to lean against the table between their beds so she could kick back the recliner she was sitting in.

"Y'all both get some rest then," Jack said. "Stop worryin' about me, I'm fine."

"We'll stop when you do," Mac muttered as he laid back down on his uninjured side, eyes already closed.

"Ain't gonna happen, pal," Jack whispered with a smile. "Not now, not ever." He waited until both of them were sound asleep before allowing himself to nod off, always an Overwatch, injured or not.

**Believe it or not, this was not intended to be a hurt Jack fic. But the fic writing gods decided it should be and who am I to deny them their wants? (And on a side note, I am fairly confident that there is enough proof to say we are getting our man back! Feel free to come scream about it on Tumblr with me!) **


End file.
